Armed standoff suspect pleads guilty

WEST CHESTER — The man who kept almost two dozen police officers at bay for three hours on his family’s wooded estate in Charlestown while he shot up his home has pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the incident.

Daniel H. Zantzinger appeared in Common Pleas Court Monday with his attorney, David Concannon of Tredyffrin, to enter guilty pleas to two counts of recklessly endangering another person, a second-degree misdemeanor.

Charges of assaulting a law enforcement officer were withdrawn by the prosecution in exchange for the guilty plea.

Zantzinger, 47, of Devault, was placed on four years of probation for the crimes and ordered to forfeit all of the firearms belonging to him that were found in his house after the incident in August. State police confiscated almost 50 weapons, including handguns, rifles and shotguns, during a search at Zantzinger’s house on his family’s Constant Spring estate.

He is the son of the late ethnomusicologist and documentary filmmaker Alfred Geist Zantzinger, who is enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame for his 1976 album “Ola Belle Reed and Family” and who lived at the estate before his death in 2007. The defendant’s great-grandfather, C.C. Zantzinger, was one of the architects who originated the design of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and whose Philadelphia firm was responsible for Chanticleer, a Main Line estate and public garden.

Zantzinger, in offering his plea, apologized to Judge David Bortner for his conduct. Bortner accepted the plea and imposed the sentence.

Assistant District Attorney Max O’Keefe, who worked out the plea with Concannon, said later that he had discussed the probation sentence with police officers who were at the scene and that they had agreed with the disposition.

O’Keefe said that Zantzinger had admitted drinking alcohol and taking prescription medicine before the event and records show he thought his home had been invaded by unknown people before he began firing at least three handguns that police later found.

He was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital briefly after the incident, according to court documents.

That fact, as well as the terms of the guilty plea, will keep Zantzinger from owning or possessing firearms in the future. O’Keefe said that of the weapons police had confiscated after the incident, some would be returned to other members of Zantzinger’s family, to whom they apparently belonged.

The standoff with police originated from a telephone call Zantzinger made around 2:30 a.m. Aug. 7 from his home. He told a dispatcher that there were men in his house, hiding in a closet, and that if police did not hurry to the house “we would have dead criminals on our hands,” the arrest affidavit filed by Trooper Brian Atkinson states.

No other people were ever discovered on the property.

When troopers arrived at the 50-acre estate off Pikeland Road in Charlestown, they heard gunshots coming from Zantzinger’s home. The troopers retreated to their vehicle, and attempted to contact Zantzinger with the public address system of their cruiser. He did not respond, and could be heard yelling and firing additional gunshots.

The troopers called for backup units, and about 20 state police and municipal officers from East Whiteland, Tredyffrin, Willistown, East Pikeland and Schuylkill responded. Atkinson, in his affidavit, said at least 12 shots were fired both in the house and out of windows, in the direction of the officers on the scene.

Atkinson said that in addition to endangering the police at the scene, the shots also risked harming people living in other homes on the property that were within 300 yards of Zantzinger’s.

Zantzinger surrendered about 6:30 a.m. without incident. No one was hurt in the standoff.

Inside the house, police found multiple bullet holes in windows and walls. They also found three revolvers that they said were used during the standoff — a Smith & Wesson .357, a Colt Python .357, and an H&R .22 — as well as multiple empty shell casings.

In addition to the multiple weapons found during a search, police also confiscated a jar and box of marijuana, pipes and a bong, court records show.